Somalia faces more turmoil as official president resigns

 

Abdullahi Yusuf, a 74-year-old former warlord, resigned the presidency and admitted that his Western-backed transitional government had failed to unite the country during his four-year tenure. "I had promised to return the power if I could not bring peace, stability and democracy where people can elect their leader," he said.

Mr Yusuf's government controlled hardly any territory and depended largely on troops from neighbouring Ethiopia, who invaded Somalia in December 2006. However, they are on the point of leaving. Once Ethiopian forces depart, radical Islamists are likely to seize Mogadishu and large areas of southern Somalia.

Mr Yusuf has chosen to resign a few days before he would otherwise have been overthrown or forced to evacuate the capital. The outgoing president explained that he had been unable to pay his soldiers. "Then the army disintegrated, unable to fight extremists," he said.

Mr Yusuf is a polarising figure in Somalia. He refused to negotiate with moderate factions of the Islamist opposition, pushing them into the arms of the hardline Al-Shebab movement, which may have links to al-Qaeda and is now poised to capture the capital and extend its reach in southern Somalia.

Mr Yusuf had been locked in a power struggle with his prime minister, Nur Hassan Hussein. Somalia has had no functioning central government since 1991. The country is now divided into fiefdoms run by warlords.

 

 


Source:Telegraph.co.uk